The Challenge
An electric vehicle manufacturer needed an onsite analyst to own equipment maintenance and total productive maintenance planning. The role sat at the intersection of two skill sets that rarely show up in the same person: hands on reliability knowledge of material handling equipment, and the analytical side of the job covering maintenance KPIs, spare parts forecasting, and reporting out of an ERP and BI stack. The position was fully onsite with no remote option, which narrowed the available pool further.
The Search
EV.Careers worked the requirement against the client's own qualifying criteria rather than against the job title. Four screening questions defined the bar: analyzing equipment performance data in a manufacturing environment, developing preventive maintenance programs for material handling equipment, working inside maintenance planning systems, and forecasting spare parts or managing maintenance inventory.
The candidate was qualified against all four before anything went to the client, and the answers were documented in a written summary that was submitted alongside the resume so the hiring team could evaluate fit without a second discovery call.
The scarcity in this profile is the combination. Maintenance planners who can build and run a schedule are findable. Planners who can also read breakdown data, audit a repair rather than simply log it, and carry years of depth in a CMMS and ERP environment are a much smaller group. The client also asked for process planning and root cause analysis, which is program-building work rather than execution work.
The Result
The placed candidate is a maintenance planner and purchaser with 15+ years in industrial maintenance and operations, whose current role lines up directly with the core duties of the position.
Depth includes roughly 12 years on SAP plus Maximo and MVP experience. In the current job, this person plans preventive maintenance, oversees forklifts and related material handling units, and built the maintenance inventory function from scratch, including quantity limits, reorder points, and lead times. A hands on mechanic background underneath the planning work means breakdown data gets interpreted and repairs get audited, not just recorded.
The hire was brought in to collect and analyze equipment performance data, build maintenance reporting, support planning for material handling equipment, and forecast spare parts requirements.
By the Numbers
- Time to first interview: 2 days
- Time to hire: 37 days
- Offer accepted: ahead of the client's target date
- Role status: filled
- Candidate experience: 15+ years in industrial maintenance
- Candidate ERP depth: roughly 12 years on SAP
Closing
For maintenance planning roles that require both wrench time and data fluency, the constraint is almost never the title. It is the combination. Screening against the client's actual qualifying questions before submission is what kept this search short.
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